I'm struck by the enormous amount of agriculture. It's easy to forget how, not so long ago, the average human spent most of his time trying to generate food.
The amount of agriculture seemed least surprising to me, those were actually the photos that looked most familiar. Agriculture is everywhere whenever I look out of the window of a train in Germany and fields with crops look the same no matter where you are on the planet.
It’s unlikely that you actually know anyone or are related to anyone working in agriculture in Germany (only two percent of the labor force are working in agriculture compared to 36 percent in North Korea) but I don’t think that the area used by agriculture has gone down in Germany. We still need all that food, it’s just that we have become super-efficent when it comes to farming it. Very few people can today farm huge swaths of land when they have the right infrastructure.
I did not see much special about those fields, either, but crop yield has gone up dramatically due to the use of (artificial) fertilizers, plant breeding, and genetic modification. Most of those may not be available to North Korea, for example because they cannot afford to buy or do not have the oil to produce artificial fertilizers.
Following up on my earlier response: drawing conclusions from these photos isn't possible without correcting for the sampling bias. On the one hand, one would find more fields near train stations, not the other, the north of North Korea does not have the best climate for agriculture, and, I guess, does not have the population density to work any available fields, either.
It's interesting how the same (or worse) environmental conditions would produce a slight dent in production (or perhaps a greater demand for irrigation), or at worst a need to import, whereas in a subsistence economy it produces starvation. Things are so good, comparatively, that we can afford to pick & chose, and throw away more than half the food.
You're asking how to build a business. Getting a product to generate 2,500 USD a month is non-trivial. In fact, going from 0 to 2,500 is probably going to be easier than going from 2,500 to 7,500 or 10,000.
Start simpler. Ask yourself how to build a product that can bring you 20 USD a month. Think of something that you can realistically envision yourself selling a couples of copies of a month right away. Then figure out how to go from there.
By the way, running a business isn't going to reduce your stress. And whether or not you'll be able to make money from a certain product / service is really speculative. You'll eventually get something to work if you keep working at it, but it can take time to figure it out. Maybe you should just consult in the short term.
As someone who's been desperate for cash before, I don't think starting a product business in order to obtain fast money is a good idea, unless you have experience selling to your target demographic and are really confident about your idea. Or unless you don't have any opportunities to actively work for the money, but you say you can easily get a rails dev job.
I honestly think going from 0 to 2500 will be harder than 2500 to 10000.
Lots of people don't get to that first 2500 because their products aren't in demand, but if you do, you'll realize there is demand for your product and from then on you start scaling.
I'm sorry, my head is on wrong today. I totally agree with you. I meant to say, the first 2500 are the hardest by far. If you can make that much, scaling is pretty easy.
s/probably going to be easier/probably going to be harder
Learning about the hukou system disturbed me at first, but the longer I live in Beijing, the more I approve of the system in some form. There are too many people here. Live with Beijing's traffic for a couple of years, or push more people than you can imagine can fit into a crowded subway train. There are not enough resources to go around. How would you deal with it?
There are not enough resources to go around. How would you deal with it?
Allow prices to rise until people stop coming. For traffic specifically, impose congestion prices and raise them until the traffic reaches a reasonable level [1]. Allow the same process to occur with rents, food prices, etc.
Also, don't impose unnecessary regulations which would prevent construction to increase capacity.
[1] If the price is high enough, it will make financial sense to increase capacity.
Wut? hukou is just a citizenship system. Much like how mexicans just can't wander into the US, or Chinese can't wander into Korea. Every country operate the same way, just that in China it's more local because of its feudal history persisted longer.
I wouldn't go so far as to say that we still have many colonies, but a huge amount of spheres of influence across the planet? Yes.
When we are studied 500 years in the future, I suspect the US' historical role during this past century or so will be likened to the role of Britain at the peak of the British empire.
Never been to Heathrow, but flown in and out of BJ Terminal 3 many times. It looks nice and modern and feels comfortable, but I and everyone I know hate traveling through it. It's so fucking huge, it takes forever to get around. And it seems to have been laid out in a way that requires extra walking / tram-riding than necessary for the amount of air traffic. I always got the impression that it was specifically designed to convey a sense of grandiosity to foreigners first coming to China: "Wow, what a modern and epically large airport, this must really be a globally important city."
I've lived in Beijing for years, and I have to say Chinese restaurant service is on the whole pretty horrible compared to restaurant service in societies with tipping.
